Earlier quoted context omitted.
At almost 50, I feel like there has been a cultural shift since I was a kid. It isn’t enough to be middle class, to have the proverbial white picket fence. The reach now is for glamor and wealth, which is by definition out of reach for the majority. If that’s the ideal you compare your own life to, you will be unhappy. And the debt, etc you take on to mimic it will make you even more unhappy. The shift was already ha…
Every geezer says this but people these days would kill for a reliable chance at a middle class life. We're talking Homer Simpson not Home Alone.
If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
731–740 of 1001 posts
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#732Crime and Grime - which is what SF is currently trying to turn around, but LA is still in full denial mode about.
Seeing a Fentanyl victim on your way to work ruins your mood.
Using Waymo as a woman because Ubers are legit rape traps anchors fear in your mind (https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/disturbing-details...).
Seeing trash everywhere, alongside every freeway in the Bay Area? Subliminal assurance everything is a mess.
BART?
etc etc etc.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#733Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Gen Z home ownership is outpacing millenial home ownership at the same age. There's a lot of denial around this topic because everywhere you turn there's a Reddit post or news headline about how housing is impossible to afford. > Pay's less. Less than the narrow window of…
> inflation adjusted wages are actually up over the long term Inflation is a tool for monetary policy. It doesn't track cost of living. For example, if luxury items become more affordable, but housing prices rise, inflation-adjusted pay doesn't capture this kind of negative effect on the working class.
It doesn't track cost of living? The way it's calculated is all about cost of living!
In the US, the official inflation numbers are based on a "basket of goods" meant to be representative of a typical person's spending. Housing currently makes up about a third of the basket, while luxury items are a fairly small percentage. Here's a pretty well-written summary, albeit with numbers from 2022:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/24/as-inflat...
Changes in housing prices have a large effect on the BLS's inflation figures. Downward changes in the price of luxury goods have a small (and bounded) effect. Even if all luxury goods became free, the reduction in inflation wouldn't be all that much.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#734Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if COVID revealed to Americans how toxic their individualistic culture is. For a long time it kind of seemed like individualism was working well for you but COVID was the first crisis since WW2 where the country was asked to pull in the same direction together and it really just fell apart. I'd be miderable too if I learned my entire worldview, and that of my countrymen, was dangerously wrong and there's no…
I mean this is just silly. If anything, America was more communal than most countries during covid, as churches, clubs, gyms, continued to meet, even if in secret. Except for the extremists, no one really cared to be honest. If anything, it made me realize how uninterested in being governed Americans are, and how pervasive this attitude is. Lest you think it's all 'MAGA' types, consider my brother who lives on the Ce…
>consider my brother who lives on the Central Coast of California in a heavily hispanic enclave. We visited a few times.
On a local level covid restrictions seem to have had as much to do with economics as they did politics.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#735I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself. If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG.…
Yeah, I agree. I think we're deep into a spiritual crisis, a crisis of meaning . A lot of people are blind to the trend because those aren't easy things to measure. But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The spi…
> Everything has been stripped of its meaning.
A friend j got the epic ski pass, so he skied at 43 resorts this winter with his wife and kid all across the US. From Baltimore to Tahoe through about 25 states.
I thought it would be awesome, he said it was shit. Because one corporation owns all of it, they’re all identical. Same signs, same food, same rules. No adventure, nothing new at each resort . Giant monoculture.
That’s how I feel when I’m in the US.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#736Earlier quoted context omitted.
National and state parks were closed. Flights cancelled. There was not much to do outside.
There were a lot more people outside during lockdown. There were running and cycling booms.
Literally every form of outdoor recreational equipment from cornhole to million dollar power boats had a huge sales boom during covid.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#737My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…
Have wages made up for 800% inflation since 1980?
Multiple generations have now been born into an economy intentionally engineered to deflate their buying power.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#738My mom said, "whatever we built isn't working anymore," and I think that captures most of the sentiment. It's also funny to see the "the economy is roaring!" "incomes are up!". Great, have they increased by as much as inflation? Can I afford a home? Work has if anything gotten worse in general. Remote's gone. Pay's less. ADHD maximum AI use required. Nobody can take a break. Pressure's on. 1.5 trillion more to the mi…
I agree there’s a lot in the comments here that are right. Yes people are chasing ideals that probably aren’t worth it to chase. Yea money for the sake of money is a bad idea. But the reality also is a lot of what had been built has been actively dismantled. Much of what made the lifestyle of the boomers possible has been being actively taken apart piece by piece since the 80s. We’re now seeing what happens when a society stops trying to improve and instead just rent seeks off of itself for 40 years.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#739Something discussed in the article, but absent in the diagnosis of the final paragraph: the unique phenomenon of Donald Trump in American life. To half the country (including me), he's the worst leader in the country's history. Even if a person has faith in humanity, they may still feel like they are swimming against the man's personal tide of anger and bad judgement. Things might be great if it weren't for the disastrous tariff policy and Iran war, which have needlessly crippled the economy. As long as a person like him is in charge, it feels like we're always taking two steps forward and twenty steps back, and for no good reason. To the other half, Trump rode in atop a wave of grievance, so even to those who like him, he's sold them the notion that their society is on the brink of collapse (because Democrats, leftists, etc.). Overall, the sum effect of his presence has been to shift the entire national culture (and even the world's culture) towards knee-jerk rage and resentment, in accord with his behavior and personality.
Re: If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?
#740As an occasional visitor to the US from England I was surprised by how expensive it's become. The US always used to seem cheaper than England I think largely because the government got out of the way so houses were cheap because you could build them, cars were cheap because you could import them, food was cheap because you could just grow stuff in huge fields whereas in England much of that was restricted. On my trip…
Same experience as a Canadian visiting NY and SF in recent years. Yes I know I went to the most expensive cities in the country but still it was hard to eat a basic meal that wasn't US$30, and in tourist contexts (like the hotel restaurant) it was even more still. Even shopping for a few basic groceries felt like I was paying dollar amounts more than I would expect to see at home but in a currency that's worth 1.3x+.
Where in Canada are you from?
When I visited Vancouver from the Bay Area things only felt cheaper accounting for the exchange rate.